On Sep 18, 2002, a BOF at the 2002 Tcl conference on wiki future brought up the following ideas for future enhancements. Notes by LV and stevel.
- diff pages (particularly for large pages) - perhaps even showing changes at top of page - along with this, a button for 'minor' changes, or perhaps an heuristic which smashes together tiny changes by the same author (fixing typos, etc.)
- trustworthiness of "embedded" code - seeing diff helps to see if someone has sabotaged
- put edit page on top of screen - perhaps stylesheets would help
- tool to search within page ? That's really the browser's job, no?
- improve search speed - particularly incremental search and rendering in localized mode (but note the slow search speed is an artifact of the slow rendering - the underlying search is actually quite quick)
- access to cvs history of each page, with ability to replace current page from a particular point in the cvs history (to fix defacement)
- meta-refresh of recent change page needs to either go or be configurable - possibly easier to do with javascript.
- ability to mark some pages are read-only so that some pages cannot be deleted/defaced
- distinguish between wiki features and tcler's wiki - i.e. the wiki code necessary for running the Tcler's wiki and features that may be used in other uses (such as local mode help)
- ability to upload an image to server for display inline (with concerns on proper content)
- image support in local mode
- ability to moderate pages
- authentication before permitting upload (or other administrative privs)
- ability to digitally sign parts of pages - improve ability to trust code
- Ability to associate IP address with wiki name (so that name might appear beside changed pages)
- better search capability (search with context shown) - google like search
- import/export capability of data for the wiki to aid in use as personal notebook apps from local mode menu rather than running separate script.
- easy branding of wiki for specific applications
- tcler's wiki should stay a tcl version
- ability to use tcler's wiki in local mode is very useful
- ability to search within a page in local mode
- keep the markup simple, but recognise the Wiki is a "showpiece" for Tcl/Tk
- configurable local mode wiki interface (as an equivalent to css formatting capabilities in cgi mode)
- ability to serve images (and other external files) from within the .tkd (would, in addition to wikit -httpd, drop the need for an additional webserver just to serve ordinary documents in cgimode -- but than: you still need an additional webserver: for cgi-hosting....:-)
- integrated file upload dialog for such integrated docs...
- Is it possible to use the yet reserved special pages for special purposes such as invokation of special user code on special conditions etc.?
- Use of Macros in pages which will be expanded to some useful content (e.g., @currentdate@)
Note that these are the ideas floated - not a project plan :-)
The general concensus is that the unique character of the wiki is largely due to its "open" nature, and that the option of authentication/passwords is to be avoided for general update. Some discussion about having special access for certain administrative privleges have been discussed.
Other points discussed that will probably happen (or can already be done)
- auto-refreshing page 4 - get rid of auto-refresh and embed yourself in a frame if you need it
- import/export capability of data for the wiki to aid in use as personal notebook apps from local mode menu rather than running separate script
- you can render a Wiki to PDF using the approach Marty Backe uses for the PDF Wiki image
Readers of this page are encouraged to join http://groups.yahoo.com/group/TclersWiki mailing list to discuss further.